


Summer Vacation

by Ladycat



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sex Pollen, background Connor/Spike
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 20:35:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4194000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This visit sucks."</p>
<p>Across the dimly lit room—okay, cell it's definitely a cell, complete with dirty floors and bars on the narrow window in the door—Connor winces. "I thought you were having a good time?"</p>
<p>"Yeah, right up until the <i>kidnapping</i> and the <i>injecting me with something</i>. Just say no, Connor. I bet you were, like, the chairman of D.A.R.E."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Vacation

Spike steals Angel's credit card.

A lot.

He knows that Angel knows that he does this. He knows that Angel has to _approve_ most of his purchases, which really ought to take any joy out of the illicit things he buys. It doesn't—although Spike concedes that's because he's purchasing things that he wants, illicit or otherwise. Gratification counts for a lot.

Ten minutes after his most recent purchase his phone rings. "Are you insane?"

"Oh, this song again. Thought you found a new tune."

"No, really, are you insane." Not a question, this time. Angel gets like that when talking to Spike. Forgets all about punctuation. Low-class bastard. "It isn't safe right now."

Well that's an unexpected response. A warm, slightly fuzzy feeling that Spike always attempts to ruthlessly ignore starts somewhere underneath his breastbone. "It'll be fine. Stop worrying. We'll take right good care."

Because of course they will. It's Dawn, after all. Spike would cut his own sodding heart out rather than let that pile of too-long limbs and penetrating blue eyes come to harm.

Famous fucking last words.

***

The envelope has a _bow_ on it.

Dawn stares, because really what else is she supposed to do? There's a very thick white envelope with a pink bow threaded with glittery silver something, miraculously unsquashed despite however it was transported.

It isn't even her birthday or anything.

"Did I miss your birthday?" her roommate calls as she walks into the room, eyeing the envelope curiously. "Or do you have multiple? Because I'm pretty sure I remember the blackout drunk. Okay, I remember _after_ the blackout drunk."

In truth, Dawn does have multiple birthdays. Since one of them involves glowing mystical green energy she ignores that. "Nah, this is like a late birthday present. Or a just-because-he's-a-complete-dork present."

"I want a sugar daddy," is the plaintive lament she gets.

Dawn snorts, privately certain that no, no she does not, even as she opens the envelope to discover that okay, maybe she _does_ have a sugar daddy because this ticket is for like three _weeks_. There's a hand-scrawled (she can't call it 'written' since it's barely legible and only long familiarity with the dork who sends her hand-scrawled letters on paper thick enough to be parchment allows her to translate) note at the bottom that makes her beam happily.

This is gonna be _awesome_.

Seriously, what is with the famous last words?

***

"This visit sucks."

Across the dimly lit room—okay, cell it's definitely a cell, complete with dirty floors and bars on the narrow window in the door—Connor winces. "I thought you were having a good time?"

"Yeah, right up until the _kidnapping_ and the _injecting me with something_. Just say no, Connor. I bet you were, like, the chairman of D.A.R.E."

Shifting awkwardly on the hard concrete floor, Dawn tries desperately to ignore her circling panic over whatever the hell she was injected with. Will it even work on her? Sometimes drugs just… don't. Work, that is. Or don't work right. The time she had walking pneumonia had been extra special awesome because while the drugs they gave her did, eventually, combat the illness, the side effects had an ever-growing slew of doctors looking over her charts until she managed to get Giles to wave his magic wand, or whatever he did.

(She knows what he did. She's learning to _do_ what he did. It's just funnier to think of Giles practicing magic. Or the Force, whatever. These are not the medical anomalies you’re looking for.)

"Your heart is beating really fast," Connor comments, frowning.

"No shit," is her eloquent reply. "Did I mention the kidnapping? And the sticking a dirty needle in my arm? If I get hepatitis out of this I'm going to be really, _really_ angry—"

And suddenly Connor is just _there_ , one arm around her shoulders, his other hand flat over her sternum. Dawn abruptly realizes that she's shaking. Not trembling, not a little rightfully agitated, but full on trembling.

"Ugh," she says and buries her face in Connor's shoulder, allowing him to take her weight. "I'm so over being the damsel thing."

"Spike'll find us. Pretty sure that makes me a damsel, too."

Somewhere in that calm certainty is a kernel of worry that is in no way reassuring. So far Connor has been ridiculously calm about this, when he hasn't been embarrassed at allowing them to be kidnapped and drugged. If he's concerned than Dawn is absolutely going to go into the hysterics she feels building inside of her.

Also his hand feels really warm against her chest. And good. He smells really good.

"I what? Shit. Hey, no. No cuddling up to me."

Frowning makes everything go a little sparkly, but Dawn ignores that in favor of burrowing closer. "What're you talking about?" she asks, so muffled by Connor's skin that she thinks she might actually accidentally lick him. "I took a nap on your legs this morning. And yesterday I'm pretty sure I starfished over your back."

"Yeah, but that was before you—uhm. Shit."

Powerful hands exert more pressure than Dawn has ever felt before while somehow still remaining gentle as he tugs her away. Dawn whines, a weird sort of ache flowering up wherever they aren't touching. "Before I what?" she asks, teeth chattering. He's so _warm_. Why is he pushing her away?

"Fuck."

Connor swearing three times actually penetrates Dawn's growing fog to blink up at him, concerned. It isn't that Connor never swears; he lives with Spike, he totally swears. He just doesn't do it a lot and never this—intent. Heartfelt.

"You know what the drug does," she guesses, voice flat.

Wincing is absolutely confirmation. The guilty expression is totally unnecessary and Dawn has _feelings_ about it appearing now. "Uhm. Yeah. I think so."

"Am I gonna die?"

"I... no? No. Definitely not. I won't let that happen."

Hooray for the shining knight defending her, Dawn thinks, only slightly bitterly. "The drug?"

"Will probably not kill you."

It's getting really hard to think. Her brain is _humming_ , or maybe that's her skin, or underneath it, where the ache is becoming really persistent and a little bit sharp, like razor blades trying to poke up from her insides out. Her stomach twists into really intricate knots and why that is a little familiar she doesn't have enough concentration to work out, only that it's the least problematic of all the things she's currently feeling so Dawn concentrates on that. 

"So what's gonna kill me?" she asks.

"Nothing," Connor answers, immediate and certain. So he's managed to get his helm on, at least, although the shield is nowhere in evidence. He moves a little closer to her—and then flinches when she moans and curls up into him gratefully.

"Okay, seriously, I'm not, like, hideous or anything," she whines at him, wrapping her arms around his skinny stomach and counting the knobs of his spine with the tips of her fingers. "Stop trying to move away."

Or at least, she _means_ to say that. To be the bratty little sister that Connor responds to best, familiar and comforting. It just comes out a little... wavery. And, uhm. Garbled?

Oh, shit.

"Yeah," Connor agrees with a sigh. "Okay, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to—hey, hands!—"

(In new places, Dawn hears in a weird echo inside her head)

"—stay right here. Okay? I'm right here. And you're going to, uhm. Turn around. And. Sit in my lap."

The attempt at decisiveness is amusing so Dawn laughs, surprised at the liquid sound she makes. She's panting, squirming a little—except oh, that's Connor, turning her around so she is in his lap, settled between his crossed legs in a way that makes her arch and whine, rubbing against the rough denim of his jeans just to make her skin tingle a little more. It hurts less when she does that, loses herself in the tactile sensations. The pain has been creeping up on her, intensity a steady push-pull that makes her heart pound and her vision go grey at the edges. Nothing feels real right now except the solidity of Connor against her back, her thighs, the pressure of his hands against her hips.

"Spike is going to kill me," she hears him mutter into her hair. The words _boom_. "Like, dead. So dead. Okay," he continues, slightly louder now and obviously meant for her. "Okay, Dawn. Here's what you're going to do."

She tries to make a questioning noise at him but it comes out way too close to a moan. In the depths of her brain, now mostly soup that hurts and itches and is starting to feel really frighteningly familiar at the same time, a synapse of understanding fires.

"Oh _no_ ," she breathes, arching again until something pulses inside of her. Hello confirmation. God dammit. "No, please, this isn't a real thing."

"Yeah." Connor sighs, breath wet and warm against her shoulder. "Yeah, apparently now it's a real thing. At least that's what I think you said. And you're going to, uhm."

A sudden flare of heat against her back feels _really really fucking good_ , and not just because the part of Dawn that is _Dawn_ would crow in delight at making Connor blush that hard. Right now she's a little too distracted to be amused. 

"Maybe it'll help?"

Dawn wants to say _you suck at being reassuring_. She's a little too distracted with the way he picks up her wrist and drops it between her legs, the suggestion blatantly obvious and really, really what she needs given the way her body freaking surges with want.

Sex pollen. Apparently a fucking thing.

Later, she is going to feel so embarrassed about this.

(There better be a god damned later.)

Now there is no embarrassment. Instead there's just Dawn making really unflattering whining noises, breathy and low, as she pops open her jeans and just shoves her hand underneath her panties. The art of masturbation with a Slayer for a sister means Dawn knows how to be fast and quiet. There's no telling how long they'll actually be here—they haven't seen their captors since they got shoved into the cell and Dawn distantly remembers that Connor _did_ get a call out to Spike so they should be tracked down soon—or what's going to happen next, so Dawn goes for fast as she can.

Which is pretty damn fast. Especially when her body feels primed in a way it rarely reaches on its own, liquid and languid despite the ever-growing ache.

Thirty seconds of sharp wrist-motions later and Dawn cries out, slumping back. Connor holds her, his body strong and steady despite the embarrassment she can _feel_ like some sort of fuzzy, solid shape between them.

"Oh, god," Dawn says. Her head feels a little clearer. "That helps. That's... okay. I'm okay."

Only it's definitely a god damned Tuesday because a few minutes after that she is _not_ okay. She gets herself off again, and then a third time, muscles clamping down unusually hard, with a desperate sort of need that her own fingers are in no way reaching. Dawn starts tearing at her pants, desperate to get them off. Connor helps, muttering something she can't hear over the need that starts to outright _burn_ inside of her, hot and hungry and huge and heavy enough that she slides to the floor.

She _needs_. 

"Please," she hears herself beg, the tight knot of humiliation sounding suspiciously close to tears. "Please, Connor, I can't—it isn't enough. _Please_."

He wants to refuse. Through eyes that are totally, definitely not watering (or if they are, it's sweat, because it's hot here, nothing else) Dawn can read the reticence on his face. Their relationship is a lot more touchy feely than anyone really understands, let alone appreciates (except Spike), and sure, they flirt a lot, too. And there are these occasional _moments_ : little things, like Connor looking at her mouth; or the way their hands will brush precariously close to no-go zones; or Dawn's recently preferred perch in Connor's lap, her ass right over something that is suspiciously _there_.

Dawn knows she's attractive. She also knows that to Connor she's safe. She's Spike's little sister or niece or whatever weird familial term he decides upon that moment. She's someone trusted when Connor trusts so precious few, and with Connor the physical is _always_ his best means of expression. Attraction is a confused, complicated response to emotions that have nothing to do with their actual relationship. Dawn's always known that and been amused by it, even as she fights down her own occasional impulses.

Those thoughts are not nearly so coherent as they mass behind Dawn's tongue, ready to spill out so long as Connor stops looking at her like she just asked him to club a baby. 

He says, "No."

After a few minutes he adds, "I couldn't."

And then, "Dawn, no."

He isn't trying to hurt her. Dawn totally understands that—or would if she weren’t drugged. As it is she is only slightly coherent, the rest of her _hurting_ and needing and Connor is right there. And for all she's familiar and trusted to Connor, he's the same to her. The closest thing she'll ever have to a brother and frankly, a lot closer to her in some ways than her own sister. Certainly there's a lot more shared understanding.

"Please," she says again, face wet with tears, her hand still busy between her legs giving her nothing at all like relief. "You have to—Connor, you have to touch me, okay? I need you to touch me. It _hurts_ ," she explains, like that isn't obvious. "And I want—I'd rather it was you."

Hopefully that comes out clearly enough. Connor is ridiculously big on consent when he isn't beating the shit out of things that deserve it. 

Maybe he understands, or maybe the way she suddenly tosses back her head and bites back a shriek of pain is what convinces him. Or maybe it's something else, she has no idea, starting to lose her already too damn tenuous grip on sanity or consciousness or _something_ —just that Connor is suddenly there again, looming over her to pick her up like she's nothing.

The part of Dawn that watched too many romance movies as a kid swoons.

The rest of her luxuriates in the _heat_ Connor puts off, the closeness of his body and how fucking amazing he smells.

They settle back down by the door, Connor braced against the wall and Dawn in his lap. She can't figure out why the change in location until Connor looks up at the door, expression calculating, and then moves them closer by an inch.

Aw. He doesn't want anyone to watch them. Dawn should probably kiss him to reward him for that.

"No," he says, hand over her mouth to stop her leaning forward. "Not like that."

Dawn whines and writhes, hands pawing at him because she is absolutely losing anything like thought against the drum-beat of need clawing at her.

Shaking his head as if ridding himself of some dark thought, Connor dredges up a smile. "It's okay. I'll take care of you, Dawn. I promise."

Then he lets those big, wonderful, amazing hands slide down her neck to her breasts, squeezing once with a gentleness that makes her keen, then flattening them over her belly, rucking up her shirt so he can find skin and oh, oh, that feels so _good_ , as they go lower, circling muscles around her hips and then between to find—

"Yes!" she shrieks, head back as Connor thumbs over her clit. Sensation floods her, shuddering through her body until she's drenched, skin and cunt both slick enough that Connor's touch squeaks whenever he moves.

And he does move, shedding the dorky, awkward persona he adopts every minute he isn't fighting, suddenly graceful and composed as he keeps his thumb where it is, curling his hand down to press two fingers inside of her. The stretch is sudden, catching her off guard as she moans again, hips bucking into his palm, scrabbling at his shoulders for balance with her jeans tangled around her ankles. 

She doesn't even remember shoving them down. And then Connor starts to rock his fingers, curving them like he knows _exactly_ what he's doing, and Dawn forgets to wonder about anything at all.

He gets her off at least three times in a row, hand drenched to the wrist while she rides him. He works her like he's done this before, practiced, easy, his eyes dark and narrow as he watches her. For cues, probably, sliding a third finger inside and spreading them in tiny pulses until she makes these really, really humiliatingly grateful noises.

The next orgasm is so intense she blacks out for a little.

Coming to is a roar of want so thick that Dawn starts pawing at Connor's pants before she's got her eyes open. Tears leak down her cheeks because it _hurts_ and she _needs_. Connor is there, though, hushing her with this low noises she feels in her belly, her bones, stripping them both with casual efficiency while Dawn flails at his chest, trying to pet him and too uncoordinated to manage it. He keeps telling her it's okay and it isn't, not really. This out of control feeling makes her desperate, scared.

But Connor is there. He's solid and strong, so frustratingly careful as he keeps her body atop his legs, her knees and ankles cushioned by her pants, his. It's breathtakingly gentlemanly, old school the way only Spike can be in those rare, surprising moments when he's not a vampire but a man who grew up in the Victorian era and certain measures of propriety were absolutely expected. Connor doesn't have that background but somehow via osmosis he lives it, cradling her ass, her back, pulling her towards him so that she's propped against his chest and he's... hugging her.

He's _hugging her_. With his cock pressed up against her belly.

A few extra tears don't really matter.

"Okay," Connor tells her, voice so low it's practically a scrap of velvet. He sounds certain, in control, and Dawn leans against that with utter trust. "You're lucky that I hate clean up. Yeah, I know, you don't know what I mean, that's okay. I've got you, Dawnie. You're okay. I'll take care of you."

It isn't _I'm going to rock your world_ but that's exactly what he does.

Connor's cock isn't too thick or too long and honestly Dawn is about as loose as she's ever been after being fingered for so long, but it still burns when he slides in her. Oh, wait, that's the latex and hey, he's got a condom? Suddenly Connor's comment about clean up makes more sense and she leans into his neck, pressing grateful kisses to bare skin. Connor allows it, stroking up and down her back, kneading her hips, her belly, her thighs. He's got most of her weight in those hands, gently easing her down until she's finally ( _finally_ ) fully seated.

Not too thick and not too long feels _phenomenal_. Dawn throws her head back, gasping and so full she feels it in her belly, her throat. The movement completely exposes her breasts and Connor makes a low, rough noise before thumbing her nipples through her bra. She's still got that on, somehow, and she'd absolutely like to take it off but Connor arrests the motion and it's too much effort to fight him so she doesn't.

Besides, his mouth is _amazing_ even with cotton in the way. Not her shirt, though. She doesn't have any idea where that is.

The position they're in means Connor should have no leverage at all but preternatural heritage comes in handy because he so, so does. Okay, not a lot. He can't slam into her the way she would really like him to.

"Your pace," he tells her, cupping her face and pressing a butterfly soft kiss to her lips. "Okay, Dawnie? Whatever you need."

He's letting her take, some dim part of her brain realizes. And then her thoughts turn off in a wave of red want, flashing black and bright yellow behind her closed eyes, because Dawn is rocking her hips, finding a rhythm that eventually ends up with her slamming herself down on him, making him grunt each time she bottoms out. She fucks him, posting in his lap like she's a damn jockey and he's a prize stallion.

She fucks him hard, intense. Her body is too out of control to be consistently rhythmic but Connor doesn't seem to mind, following her awkward lurches or stutters without effort. He doesn't touch her clit until she claws at his shoulders, demanding, and he gets her off some number of times, in such quick succession that Dawn honestly doesn't know how many times she comes, just that it's over and over and _over_.

Eventually she slumps, panting against his shoulder, biting it occasionally. Connor is barely even breathing hard, the bastard. He's got his arms wrapped around her loosely, accepting the way her hips still jerk occasionally.

He's still granite hard within her.

"Better?" His mouth is pressed against her sweaty forehead, at the hairline. It feels like a kiss.

"Maybe? I think..." Well, she's actually thinking, which is new. But even as she does she feels it within her belly, something even more desperate, creeling and awful and implacable. Dawn tries to tell him this but it comes out a mess of syllables. 

She looks up through lank, sweat-soaked hair to find Connor frowning down at her, looking psychopathic and furious. It should be scary. It _is_ scary, even though Dawn knows damn well it's not meant for her. He looks like he's going to kill something, creatively.

Instead he leans forward to press the lightest of butterfly kisses on her mouth. "I told you," he murmurs, the words dropping so lowly she feels them shiver in her bones more than hears them, "I've got you, Dawnie. I've got you."

Then, carefully, without ever sliding out of her, he spreads their clothes onto the ground and gently lowers her onto them. 

"I didn't want to do it this way," he tells her conversationally, the closest she's ever heard him come to babbling and probably to reassure her. There's a creak in the words that means he's forcing them. "It'll hurt more. But I can smell it and you need it and when this is done, if you want, I'll let you watch as I take them apart."

Dawn does not want to watch. She's kind of blood thirsty, sure, but it's _Connor_. Who is Angelus' kid. Yeah, she does not need to see that.

She tries to tell him that but instead there's another butterfly kiss and Connor is tilting her hips so he can slide in so deep she nearly chokes on him. "Arms around my neck," he tells her, waiting until she complies.

Then he fucks her.

Liquid mercury isn't as graceful, as flexible as Connor and his magic hips, his phenomenal cock. He knows just how to angle himself, how to shift with her arching, her frantic bucking to stay within the slick confines of her cunt, rubbing her exactly where she needs it. He has all the trained precision of an athlete, the force of someone a hundred pounds heavier and all of it muscle. He _fucks_ her, slamming in over and over until she'll bruise, hips and thighs, battered by his.

Beneath him, Dawn claws and begs for more.

Orgasm becomes a near continuous thing. If she isn't coming she's moments away from it, shuddering over and over until a different kind of ache rises up. She doesn't care. That's a human sort of ache, a _normal_ one that comes from getting fucked within an inch of her life (only not really, not really, please). Dawn loses herself in it, riding the wave of pure sensation that Connor offers up to her like a gift.

She does, eventually, black out. It lasts more than just a few seconds.

When she finally swims back up to consciousness she finds herself dressed, seated on an equally dressed Connor's lap. The desperate, despairing need has receded and she mostly feels calm despite the tremors and gasps she can't stop. That feels expected, though, a normal reaction to overexertion—because hoo-boy has she overexerted. Her body _aches_ and tomorrow she’s going to be one livid bruise from the shoulders that feel pummeled to her hips which may actually be pushed out of their sockets. Despite all that, though, Dawn thinks she’s okay. It helps that Connor has his arms wrapped around her and he's humming softly—a song Spike sometimes hums, although Dawn can't place it—stroking her hair and her arm over and over.

He doesn't touch her anywhere that's intimate. Nowhere that's plain skin, either, like he knows she's still overly sensitized. 

"I felt it break right before—uhm."

"Right before I did?" The sandpaper scrawl of her voice isn't a surprise but Dawn still winces.

"Yeah, pretty much. How're you feeling?"

"Like I want a shower, to sleep for a week and consume all the damn chocolate in the world. Oh, and I will not take you up on your offer to watch, but if you could please kill them all very, very dead for me, I'd appreciate it?"

Connor's chuckle is just a beat late. He knows she's lying. He can probably guess that she feels physically disgusting and a little violated because those assholes forced them into a situation they really never would've reached on their own. The faintest hesitation before he strokes her hair again is an entire treatise in understanding that she may not _want_ this kind of touch, that it may bring up emotions the same way her gorge (almost) wants to rise.

"I can do that," Connor promises.

"Good. Anytime now would be perfecto." But Dawn buries herself into his hold because as gross as this whole thing was, _Connor_ wasn't. He shouldn't ever think otherwise.

* * *

As it turns out, Spike kills a good third of them before busting the door to their cell open. He's absolutely frantic with a mask of furious rage that Dawn might actually quail from, if she had enough energy to do so. Good thing she doesn't.

"Love," he greets through fangs stained red, his tone gentle and vulnerable with relief despite the macabre surrounding.

Connor silently rises and passes Dawn over. "Be right back," he says.

There's a lot of screaming as Spike takes her back to the car. Dawn tunes it out and leans against Spike, enjoying the cool of his skin and the smell of leather and cigarettes. _I feel safe with you_ she'd said once, and this time Spike would probably say _good_ instead of demanding take-backsies.

The mess of cleanup is always pretty horrible. There's the inevitable fight about letting Buffy known (Spike is, pathetically, for it, while Dawn refuses because she would like to live her life without an armed squadron), plus a debrief that Connor thankfully handles most of but still requires a little too much input from her. Spike barely allows her out of his sight long enough for the not-nearly-long-enough shower. A medic is brought to the apartment and clearly it's the Wolfram and Hart kind because it's over a lot quicker and more painlessly than she expects.

She sleeps for 12 hours straight. It's dreamless and deep.

She should probably send a note of thanks to Angel. Or better yet, she'll tell _Spike_ to tell Angel because that is not a conversation she ever wants to have. 

Dressing in one of Connor's sweatshirts and Spike's sleep pants (they're _silky_ , okay?) Dawn slumps onto the sofa in between Spike and Connor. It's where she's spent most of her time when they watch tv and by the way they both tense, they didn't expect her to continue.

Morons.

Dawn had spent a good hour after she woke up in the bathroom. They have a really nice tub. It's a good way to think and reconnect with her body a little. Spike's lack of interruption is probably completely killing him, but he managed it and Dawn will give him cookies for it later. Right now she has a different subject.

"Thanks for getting me out of there," she says, casual as if he'd rescued her from a rainstorm. "Pass me the remote?"

There's a banquet of chocolate on the low table nearby because Connor is frighteningly literal and also very awesome. Dawn snags something cream-filled as Spike fumbles the remote from underneath his ass.

It always ends up there. If it's not underneath the cat, which is commentary Dawn is holding in reserve.

She flips on YouTube and starts searching. Beside her, two dorks remain rigid only now they're bewildered and rigid. Because they are _dorks_.

"I'm not implying everything is okay. This is neither my first nor my last kidnapping," only Xander beats her record, unfortunately, "and I fully expect nightmares and the rest of the assorted shit."

Because at this point it's not PTSD so much as a way of life. Whatever, they've all gone through it and they know what to do.

Or at least, they would if it wasn't for the sex pollen. Dawn already overheard a fragment of a conversation where Connor hesitantly brought up the whole sex of it all to Spike, who immediately snorted and said, "Be madder if you didn't take care of her, you prat," and followed it up with kisses Dawn did not need to hear.

So at least that part of it has been taken care of. Because honestly, Spike's version of monogamy is as vampiric as the rest of him and it's not like Dawn has designs on his boyfriend. That's kind of the point she's trying to make.

"Ah ha!" she says, finally finding the right video and pressing play. "Here we go."

A young man and woman dressed up with way too much makeup pose in the middle of a dance floor. Music, something low and rhythmically pulsing, starts.

Three minutes and forty seconds later Spike and Connor blink at her. "What the hell?"

"That's the rumba," Dawn explains, grabbing more chocolate. "The dance of luuurve."

Additional blinks are eloquent in their request for more information.

Seriously, they are such dorks. Dawn sighs and slumps down so she's leaning against Connor's shoulder a little more than Spike's. The warmth of him doesn't feel any different: still warm, reassuring, strong and welcome. It isn't like Dawn expected it to be different but the confirmation is nice to have. Just in case.

"So, ignoring how deeply creepy it is to see what is essentially almost sex on the dance floor—and no, Spike, no snorting from the peanut gallery—the interesting thing about this particular pairing is that they're siblings."

Dawn rewinds to the end again. Brother and sister beam at each other, manufactured emotion wiped clean of their faces as they bow to the audience and then back to each other, completely gleeful that they pulled off a difficult routine. Their body language, which had been so intimate before, is still close, sure, but without the sexual component. They weren't lovers, wouldn't ever be lovers—but for a few moments they could totally pretend.

And could _actually_ enjoy the physicality of what they'd done at the same time, something they talked about in the behind-the-scenes footage that Dawn is going after next, if necessary.

Her obsession with _Strictly Come Dancing_ is totally paying off. 

"Ah," Spike says suddenly, grinning down at her with such pride that Dawn has to return the smile. "Right then."

"What? No right. That was—"

"I'll take care of it," Spike interrupts, thwapping Connor behind his head lightly. "Brilliant girl, I ever tell you that?"

"Not nearly enough, nope."

Connor is completely stewing beside her, confused and annoyed that Spike hit him in a non-sexy-timez manner. Or at least a not _yet_ sexy-timez. Dawn can happily ignore that, though, because Spike gets her and really, that's the more important part. He'll patiently work away at Connor until it's just easier to give in rather than let it become an issue.

Scooping up another handful of chocolate and glad someone (probably Spike because Connor’s favorite food is gas station cheese puffs) sprung for the good stuff, Dawn flops back down with her feet on Spike's lap, back propped up on Connor's shoulder. "Hey, we're still pampering me, right? Because I wanna watch more dancing."

Spike groans, but he's a total faker. Connor is way too quiet still but whatever, he'll come around, or Spike will make him, and until then he isn't moving away and he isn't nearly as tense. Dawn threads the fingers of her free hand with his, squeezes once, and then finds the whole first season online.

"This has been a really good vacation," she tells them before starting the first episode.

She's telling the complete truth.


End file.
